Max Fordham (1933 - 2022) formed his pioneering practice in 1966, and to celebrate 50 years of achievement The Engineering Club hosted a public conversation with sustainability consultant Julie Godefroy, a chartered engineer who specialises in low-carbon buildings, to discuss the successes of the past 50 years and look ahead to some of the challenges engineers will face in the future.

Max was always an outspoken proponent of engineering solutions to tackle climate change. However it is a deep understanding of the physical universe coupled with a practical sense of the possible which informs his thinking about the future. He also has challenging views on what makes an engineer and engineering culture. The conversation ranges freely over topics from the second law of thermodynamics, through the metabolism of buildings to the science fiction of Jules Verne.